this week in theater

PERSPECTIVES ON PLAYWRITING: MASTER CLASSES

Raja Feather Kelly, Jaclyn Backhaus, and Heather Christian are latest to participate in Playwrights Horizons’ free, virtual master classes

Who: Jaclyn Backhaus, Heather Christian
What: Playwrights Horizons virtual master classes
Where: Playwrights Horizons YouTube channel
When: Monday, November 9 & 16, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 7:00
Why: On October 26, Playwrights Horizons continued its virtual series, “Perspectives on Playwriting: Master Classes,” with a livestreamed, interactive YouTube conversation with director and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop, If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka). On November 9, the free program welcomes playwright Jaclyn Backhaus (Wives, Men on Boats), followed November 16 with author, composer, musician, and performer Heather Christian (Animal Wisdom, Prime). Each seventy-five-minute class is free with advance registration and offers attendees a chance to participate in the discussion. The series has previously featured Will Arbery (Heroes of the Fourth Turning), Clare Barron (Dance Nation), Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), Larissa FastHorse (The Thanksgiving Play), and Aleshea Harris (What to Send Up When It Goes Down); those classes can be viewed here. During the pandemic, Playwrights Horizons has also been presenting the podcast Soundstage, with audio works by Robert O’Hara, Qui Nguyen, Lucas Hnath, and others; the second season includes commissions from Eboni Booth, Agnes Borinsky, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, the Debate Society, Sarah Gancher, David Greenspan, Miranda Rose Hall, Dave Harris, Julia Izumi, Kit Yan, and Melissa Li.

LUNA ECLIPSE

Luna Eclipse

The online immersive Luna Eclipse takes the audience through an Upper West Side church and back to the fourteenth century

spit&vigor
The Center at West Park
November 4-8, livestream, $20, 8:00
Prerecorded encores through December 13, $15
www.spitnvigor.com

In May 2018, I saw Linked Dance Theatre’s immersive production Beloved/Departed, which led the audience through virtually every nook and cranny at the West Park Presbyterian Church on Eighty-Sixth St. Now New York City’s spit&vigor company is taking audiences virtually through the church with Luna Eclipse, performed live nightly through November 8, after which you will be able to watch a recorded version on demand through December 13. The ninety-minute show is written and directed by artistic director Sara Fellini, who also has the lead role as Princeton professor Aine Luna, a thirty-something woman embroiled in a creepy mystery that takes her back to the fourteenth century. Early on she explains, “I have a doctorate in phenology, and a special interest in the study of paleobotany, which is the study of life that has come before us — through fossil records and the like. Frankly, and quite bluntly, they tell me that I have lost my mind.”

As the camera travels around the cool spaces, each room with its own unique character, we are introduced to witch Maurice (troupe executive producer Adam Belvo), dancer and activist Babs Lockhart (Caitlin Murphy), Tarot card reader Ida Lunigiana (Christine Kim), nun Sofonisba (Kim), warrior Roland (Nicole Orabona), woman from the past Louisa DeMarco (Clara Kundin), ailing father and husband Lee Doherty (Eamon Murphy), the fortysomething Rebecca Luna (Becca Musser), her overdressed son, Joseph (Pete Oliver), student Heloisia de Lunigiana (Xandra Leigh Parker), an Orange (Kundin), and a serial killer known as the Axeman of New Orleans (Nicholas Thomas). The play is built around ruminations, a series of set pieces that Aine explains “could be an imagined argument, or an internal monologue, or one side of a meaningful conversation. They aren’t necessarily true or real, but they are how the person remembered and ruminated upon them. It’s their perspective.” She also quotes from T. S. Elliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” and shares a story about a canary that is based on actual events experienced by puppeteer Pandora Gastelum. Luna Eclipse is part of spit&vigor’s residency with the Center at West Park; you can also watch the company’s prepandemic production of The Brutes, written by Casey Wimpee, directed by Fellini, and recorded at the historic Players Club, about a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that featured brothers Edwin, Junius Jr. and John Wilkes Booth, here.

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE: CRAVE LIVESTREAM

Alfred Enoch, Erin Doherty, Wendy Kweh, and Jonathan Slinger perform Crave in front of a live audience (photo © Marc Brenner)

CRAVE LIVE STREAM
Chichester Festival Theatre
October 31 – November 7 (in person through November 4), £10-£20
www.cft.org.uk

The words come flying out at a furious pace, like machine-gun fire: torture, horror, death; rape, murder, suicide; blood, despair, pain; depression is inadequate. But as dark and unrelenting as Chichester Festival Theatre’s adaptation of Sarah Kane’s Crave is, it is also thrilling and triumphant, a bold statement, live and livestreamed in the age of corona, complete with a masked audience.

In an August 1998 article in the Guardian entitled “Why can’t theatre be as gripping as footie?,” English playwright Kane compared theatrical performance onstage to the athleticism of British football on the pitch in conjunction with the premiere of her fourth play, Crave. “We had a nasty injury scare,” she wrote, equating theater and sports. “During the second preview, Paul Hickey had to stop the performance due to sudden paralysis on one side of his face. The entire company was aghast, fearing he’d had a stroke. The doctor assured us it was merely hyperventilation (read ‘overacting’) caused by the ludicrous demands set by my text and [director] Vicky [Featherstone]’s insistence on performance. But it’s only by making such demands that there’s a chance of accurate expression of ideas and emotion, and direct intellectual, emotional, and physical contact with the needs of the audience. There are some wonderful performers in Edinburgh this year who are prepared to take risks in order to meet those demands and needs.”

C (Erin Doherty) reveals her demons in Chichester revival of Sarah Kane play (photo © Marc Brenner)

There are also some wonderful performers in Chichester today who are taking risks in order to meet the demands and needs of director Tinuke Craig’s fierce, indefatigable production. Originally scheduled for the Spielgeltent, it was postponed because of the pandemic, then began in-person shows on the main stage with a masked audience for an October 31 – November 7 run, with each performance livestreamed around the world, a first for the company. But when Prime Minister Boris Johnson reinstated the lockdown, it was quickly announced that the show would continue only through November 4 with an audience, after which the play will be performed live to an empty house through November 7, seen only by people at home. That’s a shame, because at the end of the November 2 show I watched from my apartment across the pond in New York City — where Kane wrote most of Crave — it was genuinely stirring to see a real audience stand and applaud at the end as the four exhausted actors took their well-deserved bows.

Crave consists of four monologues with no stage directions; after three plays — Blasted, Phaedra’s Love, and Cleansed — for which Kane gave specific instructions about performance, Kane left her fourth work up to the director and company to do with as they see fit. And what Craig (random/generations, dirty butterfly) has done with it is a marvel. The fifty-minute play stars Erin Doherty as C, Alfred Enoch as B, Wendy Kweh as M, and Jonathan Slinger as A. Each actor is positioned on their own narrow black conveyor belt, parallel to one another, moving them backward and forward, sometimes in unison, other times at different paces. At the front of each belt is a camera that occasionally projects live images onto screens on three sides of the stage; those visuals mix with prerecorded video of the actors, in addition to mysterious scenes of smokey fog and the universe. The actors, dressed in drab gray, white, and black clothing, stand and sit as they call out their lines one at a time, talking about love and loss, beauty and fear. (The wardrobe is by Loz Tait, with movement choreography, approximating modern dance, by Jenny Ogilvie.) “What have they done to us?” one character asks. “No one can hate me more than I hate myself,” another says.

Technical innovation is one of the stars in Crave livestream (photo © Marc Brenner)

The text was inspired by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and biblical passages, and it’s hard not to hear it without considering Kane’s fate. “Why did I not die at birth?” one character wonders. In February 1999, shortly after completing her fifth and last play, Psychosis 4.48, Kane killed herself, a few weeks after her twenty-eighth birthday. But that does not cast a pall over the proceedings. Crave is an intense and satisfying piece of theater, in many ways a celebration of life. The cast is phenomenal, each actor developing their own personality as they share the inner souls of characters trying to break free. The technical aspects are outstanding, with a vibrant and powerful revolving set by Alex Lowde, haunting imagery by film designer Ravi Deepres, eerie lighting by Joshua Pharo, and stark music and sound by Anna Clock. Additional cameras follow the action from multiple angles, offering closeups and side views and even revealing the audience. The livestream can only be experienced in real time; there is no rewinding, no watching later, and if you pause the feed, you will rejoin it in progress.

At its deepest heart, Crave is about making connections, an endeavor that has changed dramatically around the world in 2020, and none of us knows what exactly lies ahead, either in real life or onstage. At Chichester, the four actors never touch. The seats, temporarily filled with a masked audience, will again be empty as the pandemic rages on. But theater is necessary, especially at a time like this, and especially in an electrifying production that will get you through the bleakest night.

SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE: ‘ART’

The cast of ‘Art’ rehearsed in masks before filming Tony-winning play onstage together

‘ART’
San Francisco Playhouse
Through November 7, $15-$100
www.sfplayhouse.org

Perhaps the two most important members of the crew of San Francisco Playhouse’s streaming revival of ‘Art’ are production manager Maggie Johnson and general manager Danika Ingraham, who also served as the Covid compliance officers. SFP is one of the first companies in the country to get permission from Actors’ Equity to use its physical theater space to stage a play, albeit without an audience, but filmed with three actors and a full, professional crew. The ninety-minute show was rehearsed with masks and regular testing, then filmed with three cameras over three days, following strict guidelines. Yasmina Reza’s play, which won a Tony in 1998, is a natural for the pandemic, with organic social distancing; the cast spends most of the time more than six feet away from one another, in and around three chairs, with very limited touching of any kind. Yet SFP artistic director Bill English was already considering putting on the play prior to the lockdown, as the work’s central conceit serves as an apt metaphor for what is going on in America today.

Originally written in French and translated by Christopher Hampton (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Savages), ‘Art’ focuses on a white painting purchased for $200,000 by the erudite Serge (Johnny Moreno). His best friend, the cynical Marc (Jomar Tagatac), thinks it’s a “piece of shit.” Their other friend, the more middlebrow Yvan (Bobak Bakhtiari), who is about to get married, is caught in the middle; Marc desperately wants him to admit to Serge that the painting is terrible, but Yvan doesn’t want to offend Serge, regardless of what he really thinks of the work. Their fifteen-year friendship threatens to crumble as they all start saying things they are likely to regret.

Serge (Johnny Moreno), Marc (Jomar Tagatac), and Yvan (Bobak Bakhtiari) argue over more than just a painting in SFP revival

But there’s a reason the title, ‘Art,’ is in quotes. It is not really about whether an abstract painting by a supposedly famous artist is any good, about what qualifies as ‘art.’ It’s about how difficult it has become to remain civil with people who do not share the same likes and dislikes, the same beliefs, you do. Marc is so upset that Serge has bought the white painting that he is ready to lose him forever. Although Reza (God of Carnage, Life x 3) wrote the play in 1994, it has a timeless quality; the white painting is essentially a blank canvas for the audience to fill in as they please. In 2020, for example, you can imagine it as an electoral map of blue and red states, with three friends arguing over what’s best for the country, willing to end their relationships if they are not voting for the same candidate. During the coronavirus crisis, it’s happening every day over social media, with former high school classmates, family members, and best friends fighting over the virus, immigration, health care, foreign policy, and the economy; they might block one another on Facebook, but they also might not be so willing to meet face-to-face once this crisis is over and go to a museum together.

The English-language version was originally performed by three white men, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and Ken Stott, in London in 1996; the 1999 Broadway premiere featured Alan Alda as Marc, Victor Garber as Serge, and a Tony-nominated Alfred Molina as Yvan. SFP’s diverse casting adds an innate twist to the proceedings as Moreno, Tagatac, and Bakhtiari form a quick camaraderie even amid their characters’ growing displeasure with one another. (It also answers the rhetorical question director English asks in a program note: “Why open our 2020/2021 season with a play written for three white men and their petty upper-middle-class quarrel over a work of art?”)

It’s truly wonderful to finally see a fully staged production, with actual costumes (by Randy Wong-Westbrooke), sound (by Teddy Hulsker), lighting (by Heather Kenyon), and a real set; in addition to the three comfy armchairs, there is a three-sided wall that spins around in the back before stopping to delineate which man’s apartment we are at in each scene. Both Marc and Yvan have small, framed paintings on their wall, while Serge’s is empty, perhaps to be covered by his five-foot-by-four-foot investment. The final stream is effectively edited by Wolfgang Wachalovsky, who puts you onstage with the actors; it was not shot to make you feel like you are sitting in the theater. And until we are allowed back into theaters to see live forms of “art,” this is about as close as we’re going to get.

KAREN, I SAID

Eliza Kent portrays Karyn, Karen, and Karin in interactive one-woman online show

October Surprise Edition
New Georges
Monday, November 2, $15-$30, 6:00
newgeorges.org
www.afo.nyc

I was initially hesitant to check out Karen, I Said. One of our best friends is named Karen, and at a recent socially distanced and masked lunch she talked with us about how annoying and infuriating it is that her name has become such an awful meme, representing so many things she is against. But word of mouth about Eliza Bent’s one-woman show was too much to ignore, so I was able to finally experience an October Surprise Edition during its extended run, which ends November 2. And I now get what all the fuss is about — and even think our friend Karen might actually enjoy it as well. Or maybe not.

Karen, I Said takes place in three parts over forty-five minutes. In the first section, Bent, whose previous solo works include Toilet Fire and Aloha, Aloha, or When I Was Queen, is Karyn, a thirty-eight-year-old white mother who is sending messages about her friend Karen over Instagram, filmed in claustrophobic spaces in her apartment, primarily a crowded closet. (The design is by Erma Fiend.) “My name’s Karyn. With a y. I’m not that kinda Karen,” she tells 911 when she calls to report a “non-emergency,” that her friend Karen has contacted 911 to complain that her vegetarian goddess lasagna came covered in meat sauce. “Karen, you’ve got rage turned outward on the delivery guy. It’s ‘misplaced anger.’ You’re not mad at the delivery guy; you’re mad about—”

Karyn’s frenzied stream of words are occasionally accompanied by emojis, funny facial close-ups, and pop-culture images (from The Simpsons to Biscoff biscuits to The Sopranos), putting a playful stamp on her declarations as she chastises her bestie since seventh grade, talking about rage, depression, pandemic marketing, “micro-aggravations,” and who’s more woke. After letting Karen know that her name has gone viral, now standing for “a racist white lady who tries to police bodies of water / bodies of color! / black and brown bodies,” Karen is upset. “We’re all racist,” Karyn says. “Admitting that is the first step.”

In the second part, Karen, portrayed by Bent in a more suburban style, shares her side of the story as she Zooms in from her relatively spacious kitchen. “For the record — I am SORRY I yelled at the delivery dude. And I DID apologize to him after I cooled down,” she says. “We even HUGGED. He’s single and he hadn’t been hugged since MARCH. I just REALLY WANTED that vegetarian goddess lasagna.” Also a thirty-eight-year-old white mother, Karen refers to Karyn as her “ex-friend,” sharing her thoughts on progressives, coastal elites, animal rights, and the Rohingya.

In the final, longest section, a thirty-eight-year-old white woman named Karin (she/her/hers/they/them/we/us) with a more professional demeanor, also played by Bent, is hosting an interactive Zoom meeting called “Consciousness Raising, Health & Wellness as Regards to Anti-Racism, Racial Healing, and Historic Macro-Injustices in the Workspace and Beyond.” The audience is encouraged to open the chat window and participate, in addition to unmuting to recite the Liberal Progressive Creed: “On this Zoom / we believe / Black Lives Matter / Women’s rights are human rights / No human is illegal / Science is real / (and really hard) / Love is Love. / NPR is King. / Kindness . . . *or Else!* / Home has no hate here.” Karin speaks directly to the audience, addressing postings in the chat from regular attendees Randy, Hannah, Zeke, and Kaaron as well as those from audience members as they debate acknowledging the native ancestors of the land they are on, virtue signaling, holding space, personal pronouns, book clubs, and the weaponization of language.

In this third part, Bent, who also wrote the script, and director Tara Ahmadinejad (Leap and the Net Will Appear, Lunch Bunch) wrap up everything that was said and alluded to in the first two segments and tie it all up in a little bow that might not look so pretty in the mirror. Presented by bentertainment and New Georges in association with All for One Theater, Karen, I Said is a satirical examination of anti-racism and white privilege from the point of view of white men and women who want to be allies but are not always sure what that entails, or what it even means. They might want to do good, but they have a lot of learning to do. Of course, so do we all, so-called Karens or not.

A PERFORMANCE ON SCREEN: A TOUCH OF THE POET

Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli stars as a tavern owner tortured by what he thinks could have been in A Touch of the Poet (photo courtesy Irish Rep)

Irish Rep Online
Saturday, October 31, free with RSVP (suggested donation $25), 3:00 & 8:00
Sunday, November 1, free with RSVP (suggested donation $25), 3:00
irishrep.org

The Irish Rep was four weeks into rehearsal for its spring revival of Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet when the pandemic lockdown shuttered theaters across the city. Since the coronavirus hit, the Manhattan-based troupe has emerged as perhaps the most successful in the country at creating unique and innovative virtual productions, which it calls “performances on screen.” For A Touch of the Poet, the troupe was able to ship Alejo Vietti’s costumes to wherever the actors were sheltering in place, from New York and New Jersey to South Dakota, Tennessee, and Berlin, as well as use Robert Charles Vallance’s hair and wig design, Joe Dulude’s makeup, Ryan Rumery’s original music, and even Charlie Corcoran’s set. The original in-person production credits list fight direction by Rick Sordolet, which would seem impossible to replicate in an online presentation in which no two actors are in the same room and possibly not even in the same state or country. Yet there are several convincing instances of physical confrontations in the show, a tribute to how far the Irish Rep has taken its virtual expertise, pushing the envelope well beyond actors reading their lines in little Zoom boxes from their living rooms or kitchens. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

In July, the Irish Rep put on Conor McPherson’s The Weir, which takes place in a pub where several characters tell ghost stories; the actors stood in front of photographed backgrounds that made it seem as if they were all together, though never in the same shot, even as they pass glasses of beer and whiskey to each other. The company takes it to the next level in A Touch of the Poet; not only does it use images of Corcoran’s set, which had already been built in the its West Twenty-Second St. home, but director and Irish Rep cofounder Ciarán O’Reilly and video editor Sarah Nichols, who served in the same capacities for The Weir, have worked magic in Poet, making it appear that the actors are not only in the same tavern but sit at the same table and, yes, engage in a fight or two. There’s also a door a few characters go through that leads to the bar.

The Irish Rep pushes the boundaries of virtual theater in its adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet (photo courtesy Irish Rep)

Originally meant to kick off a nine-play cycle, Poet is not one of O’Neill’s finest hours — or in this case, two hours and forty minutes, which is an uncomfortable amount of time to be sitting in front of your computer watching a dour drama. There’s way too much exposition at the beginning, there’s repetition galore, and it takes too long for the obvious parts of the plot to unfold. Still, you’ll be glued to the monitor because of the solid acting and technical innovation.

The play is set in 1828 in a Boston tavern owned and operated by the Melody family (pronounced mell-OH-dee), who emigrated from Ireland many years before. Cornelious “Con” Melody (Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli) is a mean-spirited drunk living in the past, reveling in his heroism at the Battle of Talavera in July 1809 during the Peninsular War between Spain and Portugal. He blames his wife, Nora (Kate Forbes), for trapping him into marriage by getting pregnant on purpose, and he shows no love for the result of that union, their daughter, Sara (Belle Aykroyd). While Con drinks, complains, and spends their food and rent money on his treasured mare, Nora runs the tavern and reaffirms her undying affection for him, and Sara dreams of a better life, perhaps with Simon Hartford, a young man who lives nearby amid nature. A Thoreau-like figure from a wealthy family, Simon is currently in a room upstairs at the tavern because of an illness, and Sara is taking care of him. His mother (Mary McCann) makes a surprise visit to check out the Melody clan, and it goes pretty much how one would expect. But Con is more attuned to the upcoming Talavera reunion scheduled for that evening, when he can put on his uniform and revel in past glory.

Belle Aykroyd and Kate Forbes star as daughter and mother in Irish Rep “performance on screen” (photo courtesy Irish Rep)

The mostly fine cast, led by a terrific Forbes, also features Andy Murray as Con’s best friend, Jamie Cregan; John C. Vennema as Nicholas Gadsby; and Ciaran Byrne, David O’Hara, and David Sitler as a trio of barflies buzzing around for free drinks. (The 1977 Broadway production starred Geraldine Fitzgerald, Milo O’Shea, Kathryn Walker, and a Tony-nominated Jason Robards, while Timothy Dalton and Vanessa Redgrave were in a 1988 adaptation in London, and Gabriel Byrne, Emily Bergl, Byron Jennings, and O’Reilly appeared in a 2005 version at Studio 54. O’Neill wrote a sequel called More Stately Mansions; neither work was performed during his lifetime.) There are some clunky video cuts, mostly when switching to single shots of a character in the midst of a conversation with another, but otherwise the Irish Rep has come the closest during the Covid-19 crisis to capturing the feeling of seeing a stage performance in real life. The company’s next “performance in screen” (that’s not a typo) will be Bill Irwin’s one-man show, On Beckett, which should not have the same logistical complications as The Weir and A Touch of the Poet.

TEMPING

Temping is a solo piece that puts audience members to work one person at a time (photo by Max Ruby)

The Wild Project Gallery
195 East Third St. between Aves. A & B
Through December 4, $25-$45
dutchkillstheater.com
thewildproject.com

Temping has never been so satisfying. Since March 17, I have been fortunate enough to be able to work from home for my day job, sitting in my rolling chair at my desktop computer nine to five, Monday to Friday. But as an arts and culture writer, I am still at the same desktop computer, in the same chair, early in the morning, late at night, and on the weekends, watching virtual dance, theater, film, and music and Zooming into panel discussions and other online presentations. It all gets rather exhausting, very fast.

So I nearly jumped out of my rolling chair when I found out about Dutch Kills Theater and Wolf 359’s Temping, which opened last night at the Wild Project on the Lower East Side. Yes, it takes place at the actual location, in a physical space, although you are by yourself for the entire fifty-five-minute “show.” You arrive at the assigned time and go inside, where you are met by a person on a screen who has you fill out some paperwork and check your temperature. You then enter a small cubicle that comes with all the necessities: computer, printer, stapler, garbage can, shredder, cut-out cartoons and postcards on the wall, a very old-fashioned push-button phone, an in-box, and books and papers arranged relatively neatly in a bookcase. There’s also chocolate.

Your cubicle awaits in Temping at the Wild Project (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

You have been hired to fill in for Sarah Jane Tully, who is finally going on her long-dreamed-of vacation to Hawaii. She works for the Illinois-based global professional services firm Harold, Adams, McNutt & Joy, which, per a handout you receive, “strategically designs and administers retirement plans, saving our clients time and money, or as we like to call it, ‘timemoney.’” The handout also includes instructions on how to use Outlook, Excel, and the funky phone. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: I finally get the chance to experience a theatrical production in person and I have to sit behind a desk and work? Well, yes. But it’s a lot of fun, complete with a subtle dose of the state of the world in 2020, even though the show began as a workshop in 2014 at Dixon Place and has had runs in Maryland, Ottawa, and here in the city, including at the New York Film Festival and the Future of Storytelling Festival. However, it’s tailor-made for the pandemic; the set is even thoroughly sanitized for a half hour between each session.

You’ll get emails, prerecorded messages, and printouts that will help guide you through your responsibilities while also eliciting emotional responses, from happy laughter to sorrow and anguish, especially if you are familiar with office politics, which rears its ugly head here several times. And you’re likely to get mad at the printouts offering discounts on vacations, something that wouldn’t have meant much back in 2014 but is one of the things we are most missing in these dark days, stuck at home. Although you will not see or hear from anyone after the initial virtual temperature check and introduction, you can correspond with your coworkers through email; a clever reply might elicit an improvised response.

Temping was written by Michael Yates Crowley, directed by Michael Rau, and designed by Asa Wember, with the set by Sara C Walsh; the cast features Sarah Jane Tully as herself, Chas Carey as James, Patrick Barret as Jason, and Emily Louise Perkins as the phone directory voice. The more involved you get, the more you immerse yourself in this fictional world, the more you will get out of it. Knowledge of office work is a plus but not necessary; I was able to scour around the cubicle a bit because I finished the tasks very quickly. The show is built to each individual’s ability, so every performance is unique to the participant, and this iteration will have a different impact on the audience, as the pandemic lockdown and resulting economic and health-care crises have shone a new light on retirement, vacation, employment, and, of course, death. Which is what actuarial tables are all about.